


The Sun In Our Eyes

by stayingputwouldbeablunder



Series: Sunshine, Sunshine [1]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Human, M/M, Meet-Cute, Sterek Secret Santa, Sterek Secret Santa 2014, stiles is a klutz, who really hates winter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-27
Updated: 2014-12-27
Packaged: 2018-03-03 05:27:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,340
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2839688
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stayingputwouldbeablunder/pseuds/stayingputwouldbeablunder
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Why. Why, dear god, did Stiles decide to go to college in the Midwest? Why did he willingly decide to remove himself from the cozy little town of Beacon Hills to move to Evanston, Illinois, knowing full well that he hates the cold and he hates snow and he hates winter?</p><p>There’s two feet of the white stuff on the ground, packed down on the pavement and sidewalks because the city ran out of salt yesterday, and Stiles is <em>miserable</em>. Even with the sweater, puffy down coat, scarf, beanie, gloves, and ridiculous snow boots his jeans are tucked into, he’s still freezing. Never mind the fact he’s indoors at the moment; central heating can only do so much in the house he’s renting with two of his friends. The building will be eighty years old come January and the creaks it makes as the wind howls around it relay that fact.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Sun In Our Eyes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [rohruh](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rohruh/gifts).



> Written for [rohruh](http://rohruh.tumblr.com) as part of the Sterek Secret Santa Gift Exchange 2014. It was a pleasure to take part in this event again and so wonderful to see all the Sterek love this fandom has!
> 
> This is based on the the prompt "you slipped on a patch of ice and i happened to be walking behind you and you fell into my arms wow you’re really attractive au" from [this](http://captainasexual.tumblr.com/post/101982606084/fun-holiday-aus-for-you-to-consider-we-both-wore) au prompt list.
> 
> I hope you liked this, rohruh! I had a blast writing it. ~~Clearly, because I went over the word limit by 800 words.~~

Why. Why, dear god, did Stiles decide to go to college in the Midwest? Why did he willingly decide to remove himself from the cozy little town of Beacon Hills to move to Evanston, Illinois, knowing full well that he hates the cold and he hates snow and he hates winter?

There’s two feet of the white stuff on the ground, packed down on the pavement and sidewalks because the city ran out of salt yesterday, and Stiles is _miserable_. Even with the sweater, puffy down coat, scarf, beanie, gloves, and ridiculous snow boots his jeans are tucked into, he’s still freezing. Never mind the fact he’s indoors at the moment; central heating can only do so much in the house he’s renting with two of his friends. The building will be eighty years old come January and the creaks it makes as the wind howls around it relay that fact.

Stiles takes a deep breath in, closing his eyes as he exhales.

Journalism. Northwestern. That is why he came here. That is why he has subjected himself to horrid winters and below zero temperatures and winds that come whipping off Lake Michigan like their sole mission is to knock unknowing students off their feet.

It’s a thing that happens, true fact. Stiles once saw a girl get blown over on the pathway that follows the bank of the lake. It hadn’t even been winter then but she’d gone over hard, sprung back up embarrassed, and started walking in the direction the wind was blowing instead of against it.

(Stiles has been blown over too, but as he was inebriated and relying on Scott to help him get it together enough to make it home, he claims to have an excuse. In reality, they’d been knocked over into the grass and laid there laughing for fifteen minutes.)

Winter is evil and Stiles wants to be done with it. Sure it gets cold in Beacon Hills, but cold for northern California is the forties, on occasion the upper thirties, and home hasn’t seen snow in four years. Who knows with global climate change though. Scott has explained on several occasions that the shift in temperatures means shitty summers and even shitier winters.

Case in point. It’s the last week of classes before finals and most of Northwestern’s campus is covered in snow. Getting to class and back has meant trudging through slush and skidding on black ice in the streets and staining his stupid boots with salt. The campus did throw salt down before the storm but chemicals can only do so much in the face of _thundersnow_.

Again, not a term he’s making up. Literally, there was fucking _thunder_ in the middle of the blizzard. Scott can back him up on this.

Stiles adjusts the collar of his coat and scarf, swings his messenger bag over his shoulder, and whines. He does not want to go outside. He does not want to leave his house. He does not want to endure another year of this weather.

But if he stays inside any longer he’ll go insane because Scott has spewed note cards for one of his biology classes all over the shared living room and Isaac’s claimed the kitchen table and realistically, they’re all one more disagreement away from snapping. So Stiles is going to go to the main library on campus, find a quiet spot amidst the stacks, and camp out there until the security guards kick him out. His only saving grace that the place will be quiet is the temperature outside. That is the plan.

The plan changes ten minutes later. He’s shivering, keeps slipping on the layer of ice that has apparently formed from what little snow melted during the day, and in desperate need of coffee. He could turn back, retrieve his travel mug and wait for the ancient coffeemaker Isaac bought at Goodwill to brew a pot of sacred caffeinated lifeblood, but that would require backtracking four blocks and no, Stiles has no desire to do that.

Thankfully, most of the shops in Evanston’s tiny downtown have thrown down salt in their sections of sidewalk. Unfortunately, like the sidewalks near Stiles’ house, the melted snow has reformed into ice. The boots he is wearing do help in some regard, the soles embedded with tiny picks to add traction. Lydia was the one who sent him the link to the website he’d bought them from, knowing just how difficult navigating winters with actual snow could be since February in Boston is no picnic.

It begs the question, again, as to why he and most of his friends from high school decided to go to schools in areas that have frigid, snowy winters. He should have gone Allison’s route and stuck to schools in the southeast; Athens, Georgia hasn’t dropped below fifty yet this month and according to Ally’s Twitter feed, she didn’t turn her heat on until the week before Thanksgiving.

Stiles groans and adjusts the strap of his bag, crossing the street in a rush. The crosswalk light indicates it’s alright to cross but Stiles doesn’t trust drivers to not skid on the slush. Once across the street, he buries his hands impossibly deeper into the pockets of his coat and tucks his nose against the scarf. 

Two blocks. He can make it two more blocks to his preferred coffee shop whose sign is flapping around in the wind as it hangs from the awning above the door. Stiles quickens his pace, flinching at a burst of cold air in the wake of a passing car.

He’s thirty feet away from the coffee shop when everything goes to shit. His phone starts ringing in his pocket, wailing _I Fought the Law_ by The Clash, meaning it’s the weekly call from his father to make sure he hasn’t died or lost a toe to frostbite. Stiles looks down as he pulls his phone from his pocket, failing to get a good grasp with his gloves. When he does get a firm grip on the case, the world tilts onto its side.

More accurately, Stiles slips across a patch of ice, goes airborne, and slams back against something not hard enough to be snow covered concrete.

“Owwww,” he whines as he sits up, rubbing his thigh. He came down on the edge of his bag, catching the bulky power cord for his computer.

“Are you okay?” comes a gruff voice from behind him and Stiles gingerly turns to locate the source.

The source is a man with a neatly groomed beard and thick rimmed glasses and holy god, he is _gorgeous_. And Stiles is, shit, Stiles is practically sitting in his lap. He must be the reason Stiles didn’t brain himself on the concrete when he fell.

Stiles’ jaw drops and he instantly starts to scramble out of the guy’s space.

“Dude, I am _so_ sorry. I so did not mean to take you down with me when I ate it. Oh god, you saw me eat it. This is, crap, let’s pretend this never happened, ‘kay? Yeah, let’s, never happened.”

Stiles gets to his feet with minimal flailing and stretches out a hand to help the man to his feet when he feels a pang in his left elbow. He cradles it to his chest, pressing into the puffy down like it will help the pain.

It doesn’t. What is does do is cause handsome lifesaver guy to furrow his eyebrows in concern as he stands.

“Are you alright?” he asks again, reaching out a hand as though he wants to examine Stiles’ injury for himself.

“Yeah, I’m, I’ll be fine. I need to go die of mortification, but I’ll be fine.”

The man’s lips quirk into a grin and he tilts his head in the direction of the coffee shop. “Come on, let’s go inside and make sure.”

Stiles finds himself nodding and turning towards the shop. He watches the sidewalk for more patches of ice and tells himself that his cheeks are burning from the cold and not the fact handsome lifesaver guy has a hand on his lower back.

“I’m Stiles,” he says as he drops into an empty chair.

“Derek,” the man replies, slipping into the seat beside him. “Coat off, let me see your arm.”

“Are you a doctor?”

“No, but my sister is. And I’ve played enough contact sports to know what to look for with elbow injuries.”

Stiles tugs at the sleeve of his sweater, wincing as the cuff skims across the sensitive skin. Derek presses his fingers, tips rough but so very warm, against the bruise that is surely forming. He hums, makes Stiles extend his elbow back and forth a few times, then pulls the sleeve back down.

“You’ll be fine,” he says confidently, standing so he can sit down in the seat across from Stiles. “Put an icepack on it if it hurts and try not to put more stress on yourself than necessary.”

Stiles shakes his head at the word icepack and the guy, Derek, raises one eyebrow in confusion. “No more cold things for me. Not going to happen.”

“You are aware you live in northern Illinois, right?”

“I don’t like the cold, I wasn’t made for it.” Stiles waves a hand around his chest, signifying his lack of body fat. “Hence the sweater and down coat and scarf and hat and gloves.”

“You don’t have an accent so you can’t be from the south,” Derek says, leaning back in his chair a little bit, eyes unashamedly raking over Stiles.

“I could be from Florida.”

“Are you?”

“Nope,” Stiles says, popping the _p_.

“Well where then?”

Stiles gives his generic answer, “California”, without specifying where. Even in California, no one outside of Beacon County usually knows the city exists, let alone some stranger in a city just north of Chicago. Derek though, his smile is growing.

“SoCal or North?”

“North. Beacon Hills.”

“Ah,” Derek replies. “It does get cold there, I thought. You border the coast, right?”

Stiles feels his mouth drop open. “You’re from California?”

Derek nods and starts to unbutton his coat. “Sonoma.”

“Oooh, wine country.”

Stiles simpers as he says this, leans forward to rest his chin on his palm like he normally would when interested in what someone is saying to him across a table. He forgets in that moment, a little lost in trying to figure out what color Derek’s eyes are since he’s taken off his glasses to wipe away invisible smudges, and sets his injured elbow down on the table. Immediately he winces and curses.

Derek slips his glasses back on then, shaking his head and laughing lightly. “I’ll get you an icepack,” he says, glancing at the girl behind the counter, “you want something to drink?”

Stiles nods and cradles his arm to his chest again. Derek stands only to push his chair in and walk off towards the counter. Stiles watches him greet the barista with an easy smile, her lips curling into a smirk, and Stiles wonders whether they know each other. Instead of straining to hear their conversation over the rest of the noises in the coffee shop, he pulls his phone from the pocket of his coat. The notification light is blinking and Stiles unlocks the screen to see a missed call and voicemail from his dad.

“ _Hey, kid,_ ” the message starts and Stiles can tell his dad just got off a shift because he sounds exhausted. “ _Just wanted to check and see if you got the care package Mel and I sent you and Scott. It should have arrived today but with the storms that hit the Midwest earlier this week who knows. Be sure to share the cookies Mel baked with Isaac and remind him again that if he wants to come here with you and Scott for break, he is more than welcomed to. I worry about him going back to Ohio with the way you boys talk about his relationship with his father._ ”

Derek comes into Stiles’ periphery again, holding two cups of coffee and an icepack. He sets one of them down in front of Stiles and offers him the icepack, then makes a motion that Stiles interprets as Derek asking if he wants privacy. Stiles shakes his head and holds up a finger.

“ _Call me whenever you take your next study break. Love you, son, and talk to you soon._ ”

The voicemail ends and Stiles chooses the option to delete it. He sets his phone down and sighs, pushing it to the side. It’s only when he looks up from the proffered coffee cup that he notices Derek’s expression has that concerned edge to it again.

“Everything alright?”

“Oh, yeah, it was just my dad. He was, my phone was ringing when I fell and took you down with me. I’m really sorry about that, by the way. I hope I didn’t hurt you or anything. And thank you for the coffee. How much do I owe you?”

Derek seems to relax somewhat and brings his own cup to his mouth. “Don’t worry about it.”

Stiles can’t help the uptick of his pulse. He knows he’s blushing by the way his face starts to heat up and not for the first time, he detests that fact that his face doesn’t flush evenly, but in patches. Derek doesn’t seem to mind because he smiles and the tips of his ears tint pink.

“So, wine country,” Stiles says, distracting himself with pressing the icepack to his elbow. “Have you ever stolen a barrel of wine before it was ready and gotten drunk in grape fields?”

There is a pause before Derek asks “red or white?”

“What?”

“Red or white?” 

“Red.”

Derek smirks and Stiles swoons a little. “Yes.”

Stiles hits the table with his palm and chuckles. “Really?” he asks excitedly.

Derek huffs out an amused snort. “No. A, that would have been highly illegal, and b, I never lived on a winery or vineyard.”

“No?”

“Nope.” Stiles scrunches his nose when Derek doesn’t elaborate and the man sighs. “My parents ran an alpaca farm.”

Stiles almost snorts the sip of coffee he just took out through his nose. He has the brief realization that either Derek is really good at guessing how he takes his coffee or the barista - Caitlin, if Stiles remembers her name correctly - told Derek what Stiles usually gets, but then his thoughts circle back to what Derek just said. Alpaca farm.

“Alpacas spit, dude. I can totally understand why you’d want to get away from home, then.”

An uncomfortable expression flickers over Derek’s face as he says “yeah,” but it’s gone a moment later. “How about you?”

“Well,” Stiles starts, tapping at the cardboard holder around his coffee cup. “A lot of reasons, I guess. USC was out because I knew I wanted to go out of state for college, but not a big state school. Evanston is nice because it’s bigger than Beacon Hills, but not overwhelmingly so. I thought about Boston and NYU but I didn’t think I’d be able to handle the transition.” 

Stiles bites the inside of his cheek; he’d been offered a larger scholarship at NYU but he knew he wouldn’t have been able to live in the city. Across the table Derek looks a little lost. Stiles realizes he’s just listed off random universities without giving a reason why and he shakes his head and laughs at himself.

“Journalism. That’s what I go to Northwestern for. Do you-” he makes a wispy gesture with his hand then drops it to cradle his coffee again.

Derek seems to get what the implied gesture meant because he nods. “Yeah, at the graduate school. Third year towards my doctorate in linguistic anthropology.”

“I’d say that sounds cool, but I really have no idea what that is.”

“You’ve probably never taken an anthropology class with journalism as your major, right?”

Stiles groans. “The closest I’ve got to an elective this quarter is physics and trust me, it’s so far from being an elective I enjoy. Anything with math is my friend Lydia’s specialty, not mine. The symbols and equations, man.” Stiles sighs and glances down at his bag. He knows the practice exam for said class is sitting inside the spiral notebook next to his laptop. “I’m supposed to be studying.”

Derek takes a sip of coffee, grinning against the lid. Stiles raises an eyebrow at him and Derek sets the cup down with a chuckle.

“You don’t have finals?” 

“Perks of being a grad student.”

“I thought being a grad student meant never sleeping and crying over your research.”

“It does.”

“Well, you look rather put together for someone who spent the past couple years of his life not sleeping and crying a lot.”

“Try five. Masters and now a doctorate.”

“Seriously?” Stiles slouches in his chair, a little in awe of Derek’s dedication.

Derek nods and tips his head back as he finishes the last of his coffee. Stiles idly wonders whether it’s intentional or not because he now has the sudden urge to trace his tongue along the ridiculous tendons in Derek’s neck. Derek sighs as he sets down his cup and starts to slip his coat back on. It’s embarrassing, the noise Stiles lets out when he reaches towards Derek and bumps his elbow against the table again.

“You should tell me about grad school,” he manages, pressing the icepack against his elbow. “About what you study.”

Derek adjusts his glasses in lieu of responding, saying “you need to study and I actually need to get home. I’ve got a stack of papers to grade.”

“But,” Stiles starts as Derek does up the buttons on his coat.

“Let me see your phone.”

Stiles drops the icepack in his lap and reaches for his phone, smearing a wet trail across the screen as he unlocks it. When he hands it over to Derek, he wipes it on his coat before taping away. Stiles can’t see exactly what he’s typing but a beep somewhere from Derek’s side of the table sounds. Derek slides the phone back across the table then stands, pushing his chair in with his foot.

“Text me whenever your finals are over and we’ll get dinner?” he asks, a little hesitant even though Stiles started nodding after “text me”. Derek grins and scratches his beard before shrugging a shoulder at the door. “I’ve got to get going, but it was nice meeting you. Good luck with your exams.”

“Thanks,” Stiles replies, leg bouncing nervously. “You too.”

“Bye, Stiles.”

“See ya, Derek.”

Stiles watches him walk out the door and down the street before grabbing his phone to see what Derek texted himself.

 **To Derek Hale** : _This is Stiles, the ridiculously attractive undergrad who ate it epically and hit you in the spleen._

Stiles drops his head against the table with a thud and whines. It takes a minute to recover and when he does, a woman waiting at the counter for her drink is staring at him. He flushes, tugging his coat and gloves on as quickly as possible without injuring himself further, then swings his bag over his shoulder and shoves the icepack into an outer pocket.

It’s impossibly colder outside as Stiles makes his way to the library, tossing the now cold coffee into a trash can on the way there. Nothing about this weather is ever going to be enjoyable, ever, but at least one positive thing came from it. Stiles pulls his phone out as he unpacks his things at a table in the library, unlocking the screen to open his text messages.

 **To Derek Hale** : _My last name is Stilinski and I hope I didn’t rupture your spleen. If I did, I’ll pay for dinner._

When Derek replies half an hour later, Stiles crows and a frazzled looking bro three tables away shoots daggers at him. 

**From Derek Hale** : _I have a bruise, so let’s say it counts. Now study._

**Author's Note:**

> I want to write a sequel that details their first date and relationship development afterwords but I'm still sitting on a partially finished sequel for my SSS gift from last year so who knows if it will happen. Basically, they're huge dorks over their fields of study. Stiles finds it absurdly attractive when Derek breaks into different languages at random while reading through his research and Derek in turns finds it unfairly endearing that Stiles is constantly wrapped up in blankets and sweaters and hoodies, a few which he's convinced Stiles pilfered from his closet.
> 
> Dorks falling in love is what I'm getting at.
> 
> Title is from the song _[Last Forever](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SiVzJirrDgQ)_ by Fenech-Soler. I can't even begin to guess how many times I listened to it while writing this.
> 
> As always, I'm on [tumblr](http://stayingputwouldbeablunder.tumblr.com) and pretty multifandom at the moment.
> 
> [EDIT: now part of a series!]


End file.
